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It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Incidents Around the House: A Novel by Josh Malerman
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Incidents Around the House: A Novel by Josh Malerman
In the eternal darkness of the moon, something is calling. The Shackleton Signal: Hard SF Thriller by Joshua T. Calvert
In the eternal darkness of the moon, something is calling. The Shackleton Signal: Hard SF Thriller by Joshua T. Calvert
Those who fight their nation’s wars are typically those least able to avoid it. Damned Yankees by Ray Deptula
Those who fight their nation’s wars are typically those least able to avoid it. Damned Yankees by Ray Deptula
Relationship flashbacks in the form of movie scenes, a bizarre murder plot, paranoia, dramaturgical disaster, and hopes of reconciliation. Leaving Sadie by S.J. Coules
Relationship flashbacks in the form of movie scenes, a bizarre murder plot, paranoia, dramaturgical disaster, and hopes of reconciliation. Leaving Sadie by S.J. Coules
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Tell Me Everything: Oprah’s Book Club: A Novel by Elizabeth Strout
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Tell Me Everything: Oprah’s Book Club: A Novel by Elizabeth Strout
Dominic spends his life helping others, but he’s about to learn that finding someone special is going to help himself. Dominic by S.L. Carpenter
Dominic spends his life helping others, but he’s about to learn that finding someone special is going to help himself. Dominic by S.L. Carpenter
Where Will We Sleep? is a revised edition focusing on poverty and homelessness. Where Will We Sleep by George Thomas Clark
Where Will We Sleep? is a revised edition focusing on poverty and homelessness. Where Will We Sleep by George Thomas Clark
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston
Bring home the incredible true story of a friendship so strong that it crosses the globe! Finding Gobi: Young Reader’s Edition: The True Story of One Little Dog’s Big Journey by Dion Leonard
Bring home the incredible true story of a friendship so strong that it crosses the globe! Finding Gobi: Young Reader’s Edition: The True Story of One Little Dog’s Big Journey by Dion Leonard
A story of coming of age, of learning not to be powerless, and of healing each other’s hearts. OBaaT – A Novel by bestselling author Alice Vachss
A story of coming of age, of learning not to be powerless, and of healing each other’s hearts. OBaaT – A Novel by bestselling author Alice Vachss
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Unsheltered: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Unsheltered: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver
What if you were suddenly paralyzed in the recovery room? Dead Still: A Medical Thriller by Barbara Ebel
What if you were suddenly paralyzed in the recovery room? Dead Still: A Medical Thriller by Barbara Ebel
Gadget writer Walt Mossberg has an article in today’s Wall Street Journal blog comparing the Kindle, iBooks, and Nook reading apps for the iPad, and there’s almost nothing that’s new, interesting, or surprising in it.
Except for this: Mossberg claims, on behalf of the iBooks store, that it now has 130,000 titles, up from claims of 60,000 titles at launch. Michael Cader at Publisher’s Marketplace contacted Apple after the appearance of the WSJ piece and said that Apple confirmed the 130,000-title figure.
So, I will consider that an update from Apple, which has released a lot of different numbers about the iPad but has been pretty tightlipped about the growth of the iBooks catalog.
The Kindle catalog which had 480,000 titles when the iBooks Store was launched April 3, now has 730,000 titles, so its lead in selection during the past 5 1/2 months has increased from an advantage of 420,000 titles to a current edge of 600,000 titles.
And, oh yes, by the way, all Kindle models are back in stock, at least for now, so what better time than now to stock up on $139 stocking stuffer Kindle Wi-Fis for the entire family?
Fallen Walls & Fallen Towers: The Fate of the Nation in a Global World From 1989 through the first partial decade of the twenty-first century momentous events rattled assumptions about world order. The symbolic and concrete bulwark between the capitalist and communist hemispheres was dismantled by hands and hammers; the Soviet Union imploded; the Bosnian Wars ensued; nonstates attacked nation-states; and serial economic collapses swept around the world like the falling dominoes that were once the metaphor of communist takeover. Faster and cheaper communication drove off-shoring beyond the coasts of the old industrial titans, enabled previously unsustainable transnational allegiances, and inflamed political dissatisfaction.
How can we make sense of the relentless catastrophes and realignments that have shaken our world in the two decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall? September 11, violent non-state players like al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and Fatah, and separatists such as the Tamils and Kurds have forced us to reconsider traditional notions such as nation-state boundaries and sovereignty. Will subnational identity groups become the building blocks of international relations? How will globalization continue to shape the organizational systems of the world? Which ideas and institutions will be the most effective in fostering future political stability? What rules must emerge to deal with bad actors affecting populations beyond the boundaries of sovereign nations? What powers or principles will guide the world through these unprecedented changes?
And what, if anything, can ordinary people do about such huge systems—by the way they talk about them and inform themselves about global news?
In
Fallen Walls and Fallen Towers, organizational systems Ph.D. AdrienneRedd provides an unflinching look at these questions and distills insights from 62 years of opinion-editorial texts and prescience from thinkers as ideologically diverse as George Shultz, Fareed Zakaria, Kofi Annan, and Zbigniew Brzezinski. She demonstrates that the nation-state is not ready for the scrap pile. However, if the power arrangements of the past 350 years are to endure, sovereignty, boundaries, the notion of unified national cultural identity, and the very idea of modernity must evolve and adapt.
What people are saying about Fallen Walls and Fallen Towers: “I share the hope that we might help make the world a better place by the language we choose. I would put it more strongly to say that this is the only way sustainable change can be achieved.” ~ Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, director of The Future of Shari’a: Secularism from an Islamic Perspective, Emory University “Essential to understand how liquid modernity – and globalization – have dealt a heavy, but not final, blow to our world of nation-states.” ~ Pepe Escobar, author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving Into Liquid War “A compelling exploration of a timely topic, with passion and conviction grounded in a wealth of primary source material and diverse perspectives.” ~ Mohamed Amer, Lieutenant Commander, USN and retired U.S. Naval Intelligence Officer, Naval Postgraduate School in National Security Affairs – Middle East and North Africa In Fallen Walls and Fallen Towers one finds echoes of both Machiavelli and Mazzini. John Adams, the second president of the United States, praised the much misunderstood and maligned Machiavelli for applying empirical and rational thinking to politics in place of moralistic wishful thinking. Indeed Machiavelli was the first political scientist. Giuseppe Mazzini saw no contradiction between honest nationalism (which he considered a cultural division of labor) and a universal outlook. Indeed for him there could be no universal justice without recognition of the brute fact of national differences and without honoring the integrity of cultural differences. To this end he was the first to propose a United States of Europe composed of independent nation states.
D
r. AdrienneRedd writes in the tradition of both these outlooks. She forgoes moralistic wishful thinking and recognizes the historical persistence of the nation state and its justification for preserving cultural diversity but like Mazzini sees its potential for serving the interests of universal justice. Fallen Walls and Fallen Towers is destined to become a classic of postmodern political science.~ Tsvi Bisk, Director of the Center for Strategic Futurist Thinking
When Robert B. Parker died in his nearby Cambridge home a few months ago, I felt like I had lost a close friend. I knew Parker to say hello because we shared the same gym, but I have to admit that the loss I felt was not over Parker. He was a great guy, but I wasn’t close enough to him to miss him. The friend I feared I had lost was Spenser, my “friend” for the past three decades.
It wasn’t an entirely irrational feeling, of course. First, Spenser wasn’t my friend, he was a character in a book, or a few dozen books. Second, those books remain, and I can go back to them as often as I like. There are more now than there were when Parker passed away.
But I think you know the feeling, don’t you, of feeling that a character in a series is an important, familiar character in your life?
That’s how I felt two or three chapters into L.J. Sellers’ Secrets to Die For (Detective Jackson Mysteries) because in Detective Wade Jackson she has created a tough, smart, interesting lead for a series that has me hooked.
Three chapters, and when I came to the end of the excerpt I switched over to the full book because … well … yep, you guessed it: I couldn’t put it down.
Now Sellers is sharing those three chapters with you, and … fair warning, you may be about to make a new friend, and get to read a very engaging, contemporary crime novel in the bargain.
Here’s the set-up:
When social worker Raina Hughes visits the home of a young boy she’s been assigned to monitor, things quickly turn ugly. Later, when she’s found brutally murdered, Detective Jackson thinks it’s an open-and-shut case against the boy’s ex-con father.
Complications develop when new evidence points to a serial rapist who’s becoming more violent with each attack. Raina’s lover, Jamie, knows what the rape victims have in common, but won’t tell for fear of revealing her own secrets. When Jamie disappears, Jackson must uncover the truth before the body count goes higher.
And here are some recent reviewers’ comments:
I was looking forward to reading Secrets to Die For because I’d read Sellers’ first book, The Sex Club. Secrets was even better. I couldn’t put it down. It had such a real feel to it. Sellers certainly did her homework on police procedure and the details grounded the story and gave it grit and urgency. Full of twists and turns, this was just a great thriller / mystery, and I love her detective, Wade Jackson. I’m eager for the next book, please!
–India M. Drummond (Scotland)
LJ Sellers has honed her characters and her skills. Secrets is fast paced, its characters are real and the tale builds in intensity and suspense. Great book!
–Richard N. Norman “Captain Richard” (Loudon, TN)
A fascinating mystery that genre fans will relish
Nothing is ever so simple, no matter how obvious it seems. “Secrets to Die For: A Detective Jackson Mystery” follows Detective Wade Jackson as he investigates the death of a social worker in Raina Hughes. Believing it to be an ex-con related to one of Hughes cases, when Hughes boyfriend comes into the scene, the omission of the truth seems more annoying than a lie. “Secrets to Die For” is a fascinating mystery that genre fans will relish.
–Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
Click on the title below to download the complete novel to your Kindle or Kindle app for just $2.99 (while quantities last!)
Copyright 2010 by L.J. Sellers and reprinted here with her permission.
Chapter 1
Wednesday, February 13
Raina shut off the motor and glanced up at the puke-green doublewide with a chunk of plywood over the front window. The near dusk couldn’t hide the broken dreams of the trailer’s occupants, Bruce and Cindy Gorman. Raina wasn’t here to see them. She was here for Josh, their eight-year-old son.
As a children’s support advocate, Raina had been assigned to monitor Josh six months ago, when the state of Oregon had taken temporary custody and placed the boy in foster care. Her primary responsibility was to stay in touch with Josh and to ensure the system did not fail him. During that time, the Gormans had danced all the right steps-anger management for him, parenting classes for her, and a rehab program for both. So now Josh was back in their care, and this was Raina’s last official contact…for now.
Her heart was flip-flopping, just like it did on her last day of high school. She was happy for Josh, but she despised Bruce and would be glad to never see him again, even though she knew it was petty to feel that way. Raina wished she were more mature, more objective, like the other CSA volunteers. At twenty, she and Jamie were the youngest in the group. Raina had become quite fond of Josh and would miss him terribly. She loved their long walk-and-talks along the river path, with Josh pointing out every bug he saw. It had been like having a little brother. Her counselor had been right when she’d advised Raina to do some volunteer work. Giving was the best way of receiving.
Raina stepped out of the Volvo and pulled in a quick breath of frigid February air. The smell of dog shit assaulted her senses. So much for her lofty ideals. She hurried to the door, hoping the dog, a Boxer named Brat, was either locked in the bathroom or deep in the woods behind the trailer. Raina shivered in the cold foul silence. The house was at least a half mile from the nearest neighbor.
Bruce pulled the door open a few inches before she could knock. “Josh is in bed, so come back tomorrow.” His voice was raspy from a lifetime of cigarettes, and his hairline had gone north on both sides. Bruce should have been a big man, but years of slouching took inches off his height and an old meth habit left him scrawny in a way that rehab couldn’t fix.
“I just need a few minutes with him, so I can make some final notes.”
“I told you, he’s not feeling well,” Bruce said through clenched teeth.
“Then all the more reason I should see him.”
“Not now.” Bruce started to close the door.
Raina stood her ground. “The custody order isn’t final yet. They’re waiting for my report. And it’s not convenient for me to come back tomorrow. I have classes.” She sounded braver than she felt.
“Don’t threaten me, you snot-nosed little-“
Cindy’s voice boomed from the kitchen. “Let her in, Bruce. Might as well get it over with.”
Raina wasn’t sure she still wanted to enter the trailer. She needed to know that Josh was okay, that the boy hadn’t changed his mind about going home to his parents. He had been quite excited on Sunday when she and Josh’s caseworker had picked him up to bring him here. The image of him standing on the ramshackle porch with his faded duffle bag, looking uncertain, haunted her. Raina had not slept well since.
“Josh, come out here for a minute!” Cindy yelled down the hallway. Raina cringed. Her mother had been a screamer too.
Bruce kept the door blocked. He turned his head and hollered, “Stay in bed!” Then to Cindy, he yelled, “Goddammit, woman. Don’t contradict me. That little bitch is not coming in, and Josh is not coming out.” Bruce turned back to Raina and growled through the partially open door. “You better forget you came out here tonight. And this conversation better not end up in the file.”
Then it hit Raina. The paranoia, the anger, the need to dominate. She knew all the signs. She had witnessed them plenty as a child. Bruce was using again. He was high on meth right now. Oh dear God.
Raina took a step back. Every muscle in her body wanted to run for the car. It had always been her instinct as a child too. It was a mistake. Meth dopers often had predatory responses. If you ran, they attacked. Raina still had the scars. Her mother had been quite quick on her feet.
Raina coached herself to stay calm. Just nod and move away slowly. Don’t make eye contact. Get to the car and lock the doors.
She took a step back. What about Josh? Was he okay? Panic pushed out of her stomach and into her throat. Had they already abused him? Is that why Bruce didn’t want her to see the boy?
Without thinking, she called out, “Josh, are you okay?”
Oh shit. Why had she done that?
“Fuck you.” Bruce leaned out the door, no longer caring that she could see his hugely dilated pupils. “You don’t know a fucking thing. Get the fuck out of here and keep your fucking mouth shut.” Spit flew from his mouth with every f. “If we lose Josh again, I’ll fucking kill you.”
Raina inched back, a half step at a time, feeling for the edge of the porch with her toes.
“Move, you little bitch.” Bruce lunged through the door.
Raina turned and ran.
It was only thirty feet to her car, but every step on the dirt path felt sticky and treacherous in the near dark. Heart pounding, she reached the Volvo, yanked open the door, and jumped in. Her knee slammed into the steering wheel, but she didn’t have time to process the pain. Eyes watering, Raina hit the automatic door lock and started the engine.
Only then did she look up. Bruce was barreling toward her, about ten feet from the car. Raina shoved the gearshift into reverse and hit the gas. As she cranked the wheel left, aiming for the gravel turnaround tucked into the trees, Bruce slipped and went down hard. Raina let out her breath, jammed the transmission into drive, and sped down the gravel road, bouncing through every pothole instead of taking the time to go around. For a fleeting second, she wished she had run over Bruce while he was down.
Raina cursed herself for coming out here. She had been advised to see Josh only in neutral settings. She cursed herself for handling the situation so badly. Drug addicts! Disease or not, sometimes she hated all of them. Dead mother included.
Raina checked her rear view mirror for headlights but didn’t see anyone coming behind her. Maybe Bruce had hurt himself when he fell. Or perhaps he’d decided to take out his anger on Cindy because she was closer and easier. Raina desperately hoped he would leave Josh alone.
She decided to go straight to the police. She couldn’t prove that Josh was in immediate danger, but Bruce had threatened to kill her. That had to be against the law. The bastard. He’d better not hurt Josh. As soon as she was on the main road, she would call Mariah Martin, Josh’s caseworker at Child Welfare Services. Mariah would get a court order and get Josh out of that hellhole by tomorrow.
Distracted by her scattered thoughts, Raina almost missed the single curve in the quarter-mile driveway. She braked and pulled hard on the steering wheel, barely keeping the car from smacking into a giant Douglas fir. It was dark now, and she was anxious to get back into the bright lights and safety of Eugene city streets. She didn’t want to die in one of those mysterious single-car accidents, so she kept her speed reasonable. Raina checked the rearview mirror again. No car lights behind directly her. With Pine Grove Road only a hundred yards ahead, she started to relax.
Out of nowhere came a loud popping sound. Not quite like a gunshot, but loud enough to jumpstart her heart into frantic mode. Instinctively, Raina pressed the gas pedal, but the car didn’t respond well. It pulled to the left and made a grinding sound. Oh no. She’d blown a tire and was riding on the rim. She had probably run over something sharp. Shit, shit, shit!Of all times.
Raina tried to keep driving, thinking it would be better to reach the road, but the grinding was unbearable, so she coasted to a stop. Now what? She knew how to change a flat tire; her grandmother had made sure of that. Yet the sliver of moonlight wasn’t enough, and crazy Bruce was still back there somewhere. Be smart, she told herself. Call for help.
Raina reached into her purse for her cell phone, thinking she would call Jamie first. Jamie would bring her dad. Mr. Conner would have a spotlight in the back of his truck and make short work of changing the tire.
The call wouldn’t go through. Damn! Seven miles out of town, and she couldn’t pick up a tower. She tried again. Dead air. Raina decided to step out of the Volvo just long enough to try the call again. After a quick glance back down the road, she unlocked the door and pressed speed-dial #2. As she reached for the handle, the door flew open and a powerful force yanked her from the car.
Raina started to cry out, but her head smacked against the hard metal at the top of the door opening. Searing pain paralyzed her voice, and all that came out was a pathetic mewing sound. A calloused hand with an odd metal smell clamped over her mouth. Raina struggled, but a big arm squeezed her like a python holding its next meal. Fingers plunged into her hair, then slammed her head against the side of the car.
More searing pain. Oh God, he was going to kill her.
Bam! Her head smashed into the car again. As she passed out, Raina’s last thought was, I love you, Jamie.
Chapter 2
Thursday, February 14
Kera was talking, but Jackson wasn’t listening. He couldn’t stop thinking about sex. After two years of near celibacy at the end of an angry marriage, he had met this incredible woman and now he was obsessed. He was sharing Valentine’s Day and a plate of tasty beef tournedos with a gorgeous intelligent woman-and all he could think about was getting to her house and getting naked.
“I’m sorry, this isn’t interesting to you.” Kera looked concerned for a moment, then laughed. “But you really should try to hide it better.” Her green eyes twinkled with amusement. In the short time he’d known her, Jackson had been surprised again and again by how resilient this woman was.
He reached for her hand. “I know. I’m sorry. You look incredible, and it’s distracting.” With her wide cheekbones, full lips, and big alert eyes, Kera looked like she could be part Native American, but he had never asked. Tonight her long copper hair was swept up, exposing her neck, although it was the tight black dress that got him going.
“Thanks. It’s nice to have an opportunity to get out of the scrubs,” Kera said. She was a nurse at Planned Parenthood. They’d met five months ago when he’d responded to a bombing at the clinic. When one of her clients had been murdered, they’d been thrown together by a series of escalating events.
Jackson tried to get back into her good graces by thinking of something personal to talk about. “How’s Danette?”
Kera’s smile brightened. “She’s fine. Except she hates being pregnant. At eight months, she is getting really uncomfortable.”
“I know you already told me this, but when is she due?”
“March 15th. The Ides of March.”
Jackson had a wicked thought. He leaned in and whispered, “Then you’ll be a GILF.”
It took her a moment, then she burst into laughter. The couple at the next table glanced over. Kera gave him a look. “Let’s get out of here.”
Jackson grinned and reached for his wallet. He felt lucky that she found him attractive. He always thought of himself as getting by: six feet and a little heavy at two-twenty, with a slightly too-big nose and a scar over his left eye. Could have been worse though.
A few minutes later as he paid the check, his cell phone rang. Jackson glanced at the name on the screen. Denise Lammers. Jackson wasn’t on call tonight, so it wouldn’t hurt to wait an hour or so before he got back to her. He answered anyway. “Jackson here.”
“It’s Sergeant Lammers. There’s a body in a car at the wildlife observation lookout on Greenhill Road. Young and female. Patrol says she looks bludgeoned.”
The news hit him like a punch in the chest. It had been a bad five months for young and female in Eugene.
Lammers continued, “I know it’s not your rotation, but I need you to take this case and wrap it up quickly. We’re already taking heat for the unresolved rape cases, and the public is still upset about the dead schoolgirls.”
Jackson’s chest tightened. The dead schoolgirls had been his case, and he had been too slow to put it together. “Will you call Evans, McCray, and Schakowski? Get them out to the scene tonight.” Jackson would pull in other detectives if he didn’t have a suspect in the next twenty-four hours, but he wanted to start with his core team.
“They’re next on my list.”
“I’m on my way.” Jackson stood and gave Kera a tight-lipped smile.
“A homicide?” She grabbed her coat and slid out of the booth.
“I’m sorry. Happy Valentine’s Day.” Jackson kissed her fabulous lips. “You probably won’t see me for a week or so.”
“Thanks for letting me know up front,” she said. “Do you need help with Katie?”
Kera was trying to befriend his fourteen-year-old daughter, but Katie was not responding. The girl still had hopes that her parents would get back together, so she figured being nice to Dad’s new girlfriend was not in her best interest.
Jackson put his arm around Kera. “Thanks, but I’ll probably let her stay with Renee for a few days.” His soon-to-be-ex-wife had managed to stay sober long enough to earn visiting privileges. Jackson had no faith it would last, but Katie might as well get what quality mother time she could.
As they left the restaurant and moved toward his lovingly restored, midnight blue ’69 GTO, Jackson began to process the homicide’s possibilities. An angry boyfriend or a drug deal gone bad were the most likely scenarios. Jackson felt himself hurrying. As much as he hated the sight of a dead young female, the need to find her killer stirred his blood and made him forget his other needs.
Chapter 3
The wildlife observation point was a small parking lot overlooking twenty acres of preserved wetlands on the edge of town. Before the environmentalists took over Lane County, most locals thought of the area as the west Eugene swamp. Jackson thought the observation status was greatly exaggerated, unless you were fond of looking at geese. The parking lot mostly served as a turnaround point for cyclists and dog walkers who used the connecting bike path.
Two dark blue patrol cars and the forensics van were already on the scene when Jackson pulled in. Rain arrived with him, so he considered calling for the mobile command post, a big white RV that gave detectives at a scene a place to keep dry while they interviewed witnesses and suspects. A quick look at the situation changed his mind. The only civilian car in the lot was an old forest-green Volvo. The only likely witnesses were in the comfy dry homes on the hill across the road. There wasn’t much he could accomplish here, and his gut instinct told him this was a secondary scene, a dump zone, not the kill spot.
Jackson grabbed his crime scene bag and rain jacket from the back of the Impala and climbed out. He had stopped by headquarters, four blocks from the restaurant, to trade vehicles. He never took the GTO to crime scenes or anywhere it could get damaged. Two patrol officers stood guard near the Volvo. The young male officer stepped forward and said, “I’m Officer Chang, and this is Officer Whitstone.”
Whitstone, forty-something and too cherub-faced to look like a cop, nodded and said, “I checked for a pulse even though she looked deader than anyone I’ve ever seen. Other than that, we haven’t touched anything but the door handle. And I wore gloves.”
“Good work.” This was why he taught the crime scene protocol class-so patrol officers didn’t ruin the only prints he might get from a scene.
“We didn’t put up yellow tape,” Whitstone said with a slight hesitation. “It seemed like it would just get in the way. And there aren’t any onlookers here.”
Jackson nodded. “Who reported the body?”
“A woman who lives over there,” Chang said, pointing to the lights on the hill across the road. “She saw the car here this morning, then again when she got home from work. It made her suspicious, so she called it in.”
“I was the first one on the scene,” Whitstone reported.
“Did either of you talk to the woman who called it in?”
They both looked sheepish. “We thought it best to stay with the body,” Whitstone offered.
The door on the white forensics van swung open and Jasmine Parker glided out. Jackson was relieved. Tall, thin, ageless, and mostly expressionless, Parker was the best tech in the department. She had an uncanny knack for zeroing in on the little details and objects that turned out to be important. She also never lost anything. None of the other techs could make that claim.
Jackson lifted his hand to acknowledge Parker, then strode toward the Volvo. The witness on the hill could wait. He quickly zipped his jacket. Why were his crime scenes always dark and wet? Sergeant Lammers never assigned him the bodies in the dry apartment buildings with the roommate standing by with a bloody baseball bat.
As Jackson pulled on gloves, floodlights illuminated the area. Parker was already making his job easier. “Thanks,” he called over his shoulder. A small dent near the front of the car on the driver’s side caught his attention. It looked recent, and close examination with a flashlight revealed tiny flecks of orange paint. “Bag and tag this dent,” he called to Parker. He would look over every inch of the car tomorrow in the evidence bay, but right now, the body called to him.
Jackson stood and moved to the driver’s side door. A dark blood smear at the top of the car made him rethink his assessment that this was not the primary crime scene. Had she been killed right here? Right where he stood? He pointed to the smear. “Tag this blood for DNA analysis.”
The victim was in the back, on the floor. The green plaid blanket covering her body had been pulled back to reveal her face. In the glare of the floodlights, her skin seemed luminescent white. Jackson tried to see past the dead, slack flesh and lifeless eyes to what the girl had looked like on a good day. She had been pretty in a pixie-like way. Dark curly hair, upturned nose, cupid lips. Then he saw the scar, a long pink ridge that paralleled her hairline on the left of her face. It was old news for this young woman, but he was curious nonetheless. He jotted down a note to ask her family about the scar.
Jackson pressed a gloved finger to her throat out of habit. The gruesome bloody dent in the side of her head screamed corpse, but he had to check anyway. In police lore, there were stories about corpses that suddenly started chatting with the medical examiner on the way to the morgue. The chill in her skin seeped through his glove. This girl had been gone for a while. A quick look at her hands told him she had not had a chance to defend herself. There was an old burn scar in the web of her thumb, but no recent scratches or bruises.
“The sensuality of Sherrilyn Kenyon and the intensity of Patricia Briggs” tops
this morning’s latest additions to our Free Book Alert listings….
But first … a word from Today’s Sponsor
(Editor’s Note: Whether you are coming to this from this week’s Free Kindle Nation Short featured excerpt or starting fresh, here’s the place to start with L.J. Sellers’ excellent series starring Detective Wade Jackson. –S.W.)
A well-plotted suspenseful tale with a pulse-pounding ending — Midwest Book Review
The Sex Club is a great read. The author maintains tension so well I stayed up four hours past my bedtime to finish the book. A well crafted story with an unexpected ending. Extremely fulfilling. –Theresa de Valence, mystery reviewer
L.J. Sellers rips current social issues from editorial pages, wraps them in exciting, multi-faceted mysteries, and delivers thrilling reads. Pick up any Sellers mystery and you ll find the full package lovable, flawed human beings with interesting, imperfect lives; twisted, mean-spirited villains that we love to hate; good guys who aren’t so good; bad guys who have standards; a suspenseful tale with enough plot twists and red herrings to keep the mystery fascinating to the last page and leave the reader begging for more. –Charlotte Phillips, author of the Eva Baum mysteries
When a bomb explodes at a birth-control clinic and a young client turns up dead, Detective Jackson is assigned both cases. But are they connected? Kera, the clinic nurse who discovers that the girl’s Bible group is really a sexual free-for-all, thinks they are. But confidentiality keeps her from telling the police, so she digs for the truth on her own and becomes the bomber’s new target. Soon another girl is murdered. Can Jackson uncover the killer’s shocking identity in time to stop the slaughter?
This is the first book in the Detective Jackson mystery/suspense series, which has been highly praised by Mystery Scene and Spinetingler magazines, as well as numerous crime fiction reviewers.
The best way to find out about these free listings right away, when they occur, is to subscribe to the Kindle edition of Kindle Nation Daily, which pushes Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alerts directly to your Kindle Home screen 24/7. And in the case of many free listings that disappear within a matter of hours or days, “right away” is often just in time.
No Kindle Required: Whether you are a long-time Kindle owner or you’ve just acquired an iPad and are filling it with ebooks for the first time or you are reading Kindle books on a PC, Mac, BlackBerry, iPhone or iPad Touch, you can get any and all of these titles absolutely free on your Kindle-compatible device of choice!
Kindle Price: $0.00 & includes wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet Text-to-Speech: Enabled
Conniving Greek gods, horrifying demons, vengeful warriors, and true love clash in this sexy, fast-paced paranormal romance series launch. Cocktail waitress and bookseller Casey Simopolous leads a lonely life until the night she rescues a mysterious man from a pack of hideous monsters. The handsome stranger is the Argonaut Theron, a guardian of a realm inhabited by the descendants of Greek demigods, and Casey soon finds herself thrown into a dangerous romance amid secrets and prophecies that may hold the key to her own mysterious past and the salvation of Theron’s besieged race. Naughton (Stolen Fury) occasionally stumbles in her narration, but she has a tremendous skill with steamy passion, dynamic characterization—especially of strong, multifaceted women whose friendships and family relationships play a crucial part in the story—and thrilling action.
“Gripping, dangerous, and sinfully sexy, MARKED is a top-notch read! Elisabeth Naughton combines dynamic dialogue and sizzling romance with a wicked cool world. Do NOT miss this series!” –NY Times Bestselling Author Larissa Ione
“The sensuality of Sherrilyn Kenyon and the intensity of Patricia Briggs. Naughton’s foray into paranormals is deep, dark and sexy as hell.” –NY Times Bestselling Author Angie Fox
This free download provides the first 50 pages of the Amazon exclusive novel DRACULAS. The full length novel will be available for $2.99 on October 19th. You can preorder it here.
A DYING MAN’S GREATEST TREASURE… Mortimer Moorecook, retired Wall Street raider, avid collector, is losing his fight against cancer. With weeks to live, a package arrives at the door of his hillside mansion–an artifact he paid millions for…a hominoid skull with elongated teeth, discovered in a farmer’s field in the Romanian countryside. With Shanna, his beautiful research assistant looking on, he si
Dawn McCullough-White’s historical fantasy Cameo the Assassin is racing up the Kindle Store category bestseller lists and has already received the following 5-star review in Foreword Magazine’s Clarion Review:
“Cameo the Assassin, a historical novel from Dawn McCullough-White, is an engaging, fast-paced romp about highwaymen, assassins, Lockenwood vampires, their victims, and their evaders in an age when ‘who knew there were so many vampires running around.’
“Cameo, an alias for Gwen, ‘the thrall of a vampire,’ has two masters to serve. One is Wick, the aging, spell-casting head of the Association of Assassins, who assigns missions to the battle-scarred Cameo. The other is Haffef, Cameo’s vampire “Master,” who years ago rescued her from certain death after her vicious rape and beating and a deadly attack upon her younger sister. The one wants her to kill the prince of the Kingdom of Sieunes; the other wants her to unearth her sister’s bones and return them to him. Her life is further conflicted when she agrees to become the bodyguard for Kyrian, a fifteen-year-old acolyte healer who needs to travel to the Temple of the Sun at King’s Basin. As she balances her missions and battles the forces of evil set against her on all sides, she overcomes assassins sent to kill her, seeks revenge against highwaymen who have robbed her of her namesake cameo brooch, develops an arms-length relationship with one of the brigands, and confronts Wick in a deadly duel.
“The action is rapid and the multi-layered plot is well-constructed and paced accordingly, with several instances of wry humour despite the overall darkness of the themes. The characters-whether likeable or detestable-are credible. The historical settings, although imaginary, are recognizable, with their references to weaponry like rapiers, swords, and muskets, and travel by horses and coaches. Images of Haffef when he ‘slipped through the floor feet first’ or of the world-weary Cameo swigging from her ever-handy flask create clear pictures in the reader’s mind. The majority of the novel’s text is made up of dialogue, and the way each character speaks is well-suited to their personality.”
Click here to download Cameo the Assassin (Book One) (or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!
“Free” in the Kindle Store refers here to the price for download to UK-based Kindles.
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No Kindle Required: Whether you are a long-time Kindle owner or you’ve just acquired an iPad and are filling it with ebooks for the first time or you are reading Kindle books on a PC, Mac, iPhone or iPad Touch, you can get any and all of these titles absolutely free on your Kindle-compatible device of choice! Click here to download a free Kindle App for your device.
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By J.A. Konrath, F. Paul Wilson, Jack Kilborn, Jeff Strand, Blake Crouch
This free download provides the first 50 pages of the Amazon exclusive novel DRACULAS. The full length novel will be available for $2.99 on October 19th. You can preorder the complete novel here.
Cybill Shepherd has always been that unique form of celebrity, combining the very best virtues of Hollywood glamour with the sexy down-to-earth appeal of a woman who knows what she wants and how to get it. Cybill Disobedience charts the life and times of the actress, best known for her role as Maddy in the hit 80s show “Moonlighting” and for parts in Taxi Driver and the Last Picture Show. She has since gone on to find fame as the star of her own sitcom but in Hollywood circles, it seems, the rumour mill cared less about her activity on screen and more about her life behind the bedroom doors. Along with several failed relationships she has had run-ins with some of the Tinseltown’s most admired men, and tales such as the night Elvis took her and a friend to the movies are recounted with wit and humour. The book really gets into its stride when Cybill dishes the dirt on her two most popular vehicles and there are some genuinely frank and surprising revelations to be found here. The bitchiness and backstabbing of TV executives, rival stars and script writers are all laid bare here though Cybill never pretends it all went on around her. She did, on more than one occasion, wade into the thick with all cannons blazing, though it usually ended up with another exec or star hating her. The rivalry with her “Cybill” co-star Christine Baranksi makes for particularly bitchy reading, though Cybill is careful not to actually attack her in print, instead ridiculing the press speculation that she tried to steal Christine’s best jokes, or more often than not, just the show. It’s an affectionate and honest story of Hollywood success and Cybill’s wry and witty voice shines through. She has genuinely laid herself out in the open and you can’t help but feel attracted to her somewhat self-imposed vulnerabilty. Open, honest and immensely readable, Cybill Disobedience is as sassy and sexy as its subject matter. –Jon Weir
A New Fantasy Fiction Freebie from Harper Voyager!
‘Blake Charlton has not only invented a fascinating world and peopled it with realistic people and wonderful, grisly monsters, but he has also created one of the few truly original magical systems we’ve seen in fantasy fiction… I’m fascinated to see what happens next and will be following every word with the absorption of an apprentice spellwright. You will be, too.’ Tad Williams
‘Nicodemus Weal is a protagonist that all of us can identify with. SPELLWRIGHT features a unique system of magic and characters that are genuine inhabitants of that world. SPELLWRIGHT is a letter-perfect story: an absorbing read and recommended.’ Robin Hobb
‘An enthralling tale’ Terry Brooks
‘A clever conceit well executed adds a flair of originality to this wizard-in-training fantasy. A spellcaster who can’t spell – in both senses of the word! Fast-paced and well-written, SPELLWRIGHT is an enjoyable read.’ Kevin J. Anderson
‘SPELLWRIGHT is exactly the kind of book that got me into fantasy in the first place. Blake Charlton has built a world that is as new as it is classic, and a story that kept me reading late into the night. Blake Charlton is a talent to watch.’ –Daniel Abraham
‘Blake Charlton’s novel is, quite literally, a magical and spellbinding adventure about overcoming the sort of odds that many in our own world struggle with.’ Tobias Buckell
‘An absorbing tale of acceptance for lovers of language and magic everywhere.’ Sean Williams
Description
In a world where words can come to life, an inability to spell can be a dangerous thing. And no one knows this better than apprentice wizard Nicodemus Weal.
Nicodemus is a cacographer, unable to reproduce even simple magical texts without ‘misspelling’ – a mistake which can have deadly consequences. He was supposed to be the Halcyon
Nicodemus Weal is a cacographer, unable to reproduce even simple magical texts without ‘misspelling’ – a mistake which can have deadly consequences. He was supposed to be the Halcyon, a magic-user of unsurpassed power, destined to save the world; instead he is restricted to menial tasks, and mocked for his failure to live up to the prophecy.
But not everyone interprets prophecy in the same way. There are some factions who believe a cacographer such as Nicodemus could hold great power – power that might be used as easily for evil as for good. And when two of the wizards closest to Nicodemus are found dead, it becomes clear that some of those factions will stop at nothing to find the apprentice and bend him to their will…
Five Great Mickey Spillane Classics at Bargain Prices!
Vengeance Is Mineby Mickey Spillane (Kindle Edition – 1 Aug 1968) – Kindle Book
The Winnie-the-Pooh stories have been loved by generations of children since Pooh, Christopher Robin, Piglet, Rabbit, Owl, Kanga, Roo and Eeyore first made their appearance in 1926. In this first volume we meet all the friends from the Hundred Acre Wood, celebrate Eeyore’s birthday, go on an “expotition” to the North Pole and lay a Heffalump trap. Accompanied by E.H. Shepard’s original illustrations in colour, this is an ideal book for bedtime stories. —Philippa Reece
In real–life conflict resolution situations, one size does not fit all. Just as a mechanic does not fix every car with the same tool, the conflict resolution practitioner cannot hope to resolve every dispute using the same technique. Practitioners need to be comfortable with a wide variety of tools to diagnose different problems, in vastly different circu
How big a deal is it when a bestselling author like David Morrell decides to skip traditional publishers altogether and announces that he is going direct to Kindle with his new full-length thriller, which is available today in the Kindle Store along with six of his backlist titles including six that were out of print?
It is a very, very big deal.
I thought it was a pretty big deal in February 2009 when Amazon announced that it had signed Stephen King for a Kindle exclusive book deal with Ur, and I was subsequently jazzed when Anne Rice made noises about going direct to Kindle and Joe Konrath pulled his popular Jack Daniels series from traditional publishers in favor of an exclusive direct-to-Kindle deal for the series’ latest, Shaken (Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels Mysteries).
Since I ordinarily come at these things from a bookselling perspective, I’ve been thinking for a while that the time should come soon when Amazon should arrange with Stephen King or J.D. Salinger to release his or her next book for the Kindle 60 days ahead of print, and then keeping doing this about once a month. Of course Amazon already knows that: nothing sells TVs like must-see TV.
After all, this one is not rocket science, and David Morrell is not Stephen King or J.D. Salinger. In fact, for these purposes, he’s better than King or Salinger. Why? Well, King is just that, the King, and his success as a fiction writer is so relentless and otherworldly that very, very few hardworking fiction writers are going to see him as an example.
Morrell? Yes, he has written over two dozen novels, made gazillions from film adaptations, and sold a ton of books. But his success is not so inaccessible that other writers won’t look at his decision to go “direct to Kindle” and decide that maybe they should do the math for themselves.
Morrell is not the first to do this, but he’s the biggest yet to bring out a new title this way. Konrath does not need his Morrell’s validation, but one effect of Morrell’s move is that a lot fewer people are going to refer to Konrath as “an exception” and a lot more are going to start calling him a trailblazer.
More and more authors are going to follow this trail, and they will soon be making more money and achieving more stable success than would have been the case if they had remained in what will increasingly be revealed as the sad, diminishing little world of the traditional publishers. And of course, for every popular author who decides to go “direct to Kindle” there will be thousands more Kindles sold.
, by Adrienne Redd, Ph.D. Thank you for supporting our sponsors and considering their Kindle books. 
because in Detective Wade Jackson she has created a tough, smart, interesting lead for a series that has me hooked.
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